Jerry Tarkanian will be in Atlanta this weekend, but not to wait out Monday's announcement of the new inductees into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. He'll be there to take in Final Four weekend, an event with which he's intimately familiar.

Lots of his friends and family will be there, too, or are ready to get there if the occasion calls for it. Yes, they have that occasion in mind, even if Tarkanian doesn't.

"No. You know, I haven't thought about it," the 82-year-old coach said, pleasantly but briefly. He was being driven to physical therapy in Las Vegas by his son, Danny, his former point guard at UNLV, then his assistant coach and, later, his lawyer in one of the court cases that has helped define his father's career.

The elder Tarkanian has had various health issues the past four years—a fall in which he injured his shoulder and neck, a heart attack and some minor strokes. His wife and biggest supporter, Lois, also had a recent health setback that likely will keep her from accompanying him east.

"I feel pretty good," Tarkanian said. At least good enough to make the Atlanta trip, and comfortable enough not to fret over the Hall of Fame vote. "I'll just let it happen," he said.

Danny will be there. So will Dave Rice, another former player and now UNLV's coach. Other former players and coaching colleagues plan to be there. His granddaughter Danielle Diamant, a senior basketball player at Northwestern, is leaning toward going.

Jodie Diamant, Jerry's daughter, isn't going for now, but she said that if Danielle makes the trip, she'd change her plans. "Then we can celebrate when they announce it," she said, repeating her frequent emphasis on "when," not "if."

In reality, "if" is not far from anyone's minds. This year, he's a Hall of Fame finalist for the first time ... nearly 45 years after Tarkanian began his career at Long Beach State, 23 years after his UNLV team won the national championship and 11 years after his retirement from Fresno State.

The game's greatest shrine without a figure as iconic as "Tark the Shark" seems borderline blasphemous. His supporters are sure of what's behind it.

"If (the Hall voters) think he wasn't a good enough coach, they're nuts," Danny Tarkanian said. "It'll all come down to the NCAA."

No, it won't come down to the governing body putting the elder Tarkanian on Springfield probation. After the decades-long battles he fought with it, it only seems plausible.

The fight leaves him with a split legacy. He's the mastermind of the iconic Runnin' Rebels, 1990 champion and one of the winningest coaches of all time (his .784 percentage is still fourth in Division I history). And he's the instigator of two lawsuits against the NCAA, one challenging the organization of denying him due process and the other accusing it of harassing him because of his public criticism.

Jerry Tarkanian has a Hall of Fame resume, but voters . (AP Photo)

"For half his major-college career," his son said, "the NCAA was trying to shut down his program."

The concern, he added, is that the picture voters have of Tarkanian is the one the NCAA painted, and that they would be rewarding an outlaw, a rogue and a cheater.

However, the consensus among his supporters is that the perception is fading, or has faded.

"The question is," Danny Tarkanian said, "will the people who are voting believe what the NCAA has been saying all these years, that my father was wrong? If so, he won't get in. Or will they look at what is happening at USC, at Miami, at UCLA and say, 'Hey, he fought those guys his entire career, maybe he was right all along'?

"If there's enough people who believe the latter, he'll get in."

It's the question that, for now, has no answer. "I can't get into the minds of the voters previously," said Rice, whose first coaching job was as Tarkanian's graduate assistant at UNLV in 1991-92. "But I don't think that will be a factor now."

If embrace by the basketball establishment appears far-fetched because of Tarkanian's history, then reconciliation with UNLV after it forced Tarkanian out in 1992 seemed just as impossible. But that's now happened—he attends games regularly and Rice's practices occasionally.

"This is a program he's put on the map," Rice said.

Tarkanian's daughter is responsible for putting him back on the Hall's radar, everybody close to him acknowledges. Diamant renewed the off-and-on quest last summer, she said, after a long-time friend openly doubted that induction, at this point, would ever happen.

"Oh, I'm making it happen," she recalled replying.

When Diamant began researching Tarkanian's career for the application to the Hall, she said, she was stunned not only by his list of accomplishments but by the anecdotes from players whose lives he helped for nearly four decades.

"It became even more of a slap in the face," she said she told her father. "There are so many things that you've done, it's a travesty that you're not in."

The tide of public opinion, about the NCAA and the coach who fought to expose its excesses, has now shifted, Diamant believes. So, she said, "I tell people, 'We should make reservations for Springfield.'

The need for those reservations will be determined Monday in Atlanta. Tarkanian will be there, whether he gets the official Hall stamp of approval or not.